Case in Brief

Case in Brief

OSI prepared a summary of evidentiary materials submitted in May 2013 to the United States District Court for the Central District of California by the U.S. Department of Justice to support its claims for forfeiture of approximately $32 million of property owned by Teodorin Nguema Obiang of Equatorial Guinea, arising from allegations that it derives from the proceeds of extortion, misappropriation, bribery and other criminal conduct.

This briefing paper, prepared by the Open Society Justice Initiative, contains a small selection of portions of interview notes prepared by Department of Justice investigators from meetings with potential witnesses in the asset forfeiture proceedings. For legal procedural reasons, Judge George H. Wu was not permitted to take these and hundreds of pages of other evidence into consideration when reaching his August 20, 2013 ruling dismissing, for lack of “probable cause,” the bulk of the Government’s claims relating to alleged official corruption perpetrated by Teodorin Nguema Obiang in Equatorial Guinea. The dismissal was “without prejudice,” however, and the Government will almost certainly be permitted to re-file new claims, this time including substantial evidence not considered in the August decision.